Both Apple’s iPhone 5 and the latest fifth-generation iPod touch exhibit an unusual problem affecting how the devices handle touch input events. As noted by game developer CMA Megacorp, if you slide your finger back and forth across the display rapidly, input events drop out or stop altogether. Worse, the issue also affects scrolling and swipes and is exacerbated by scrolling diagonally. While many people never use rapid swiping motions to operate their device, games like Fruit Ninja rely on moving one’s finger across the touchscreen in a rapid succession…

CMA Megacorp was first to acknowledge the unusual behavior on Twitter.

A video from Recombu seen at the top clearly suggests that the behaviour is only limited to latest iOS devices that rock a taller, four-inch display – meaning the iPhone 5 and fourth-generation iPod touch.

iMore editor Rene Ritchie concurs, additionally discovering that the problem appears to be independent of whether the devices have iOS 6 or 6.0.1 installed.

Sure enough, whilst both iPhone 4S’s handled the fast paced scrolling to aplomb, one iPhone 5 struggled to hold its concentration, dropping and picking back up touch input whilst the other stopped registering input altogether.

That Rene couldn’t reproduce the issue on an iPhone 4S or iPad 4 might suggest a hardware problem with Apple’s in-cell display assembly on the iPhone 5 and latest iPod touch.

On the other hand, it is extremely unlikely that such a hardware issue would pass unnoticed during the engineering verification phase. Besides, Apple is often praised for its sophisticated multitouch technology.

The speed of chips running software that interprets touch input events is also unlikely to be causing this behavior. Both devices feature refreshed internals, with noticeable speed gains across the board.

This leaves us with two other possibilities

First, it might be a good ol’ software bug easily fixable with a future firmware update.

Because the smaller iPad has really narrow side bezels, improvements have been added to the iOS multitouch technology to ignore false positive touch inputs due to your thumb now resting on the actual screen of the device instead of the bezel.

Therefore, this inability of the iPhone 5 and iPod touch to register rapid swipes correctly could be an unintended consequence of the iOS multitouch tech tweaks.

Of course, this is all purely speculative because Apple has not yet spoken on the matter.

yeah mine don’t do that. must be some phones but i did what he did on the video and mine does what the older iPhone do and does not glitch.

Jerry

mine did it if i swiped the whole screen up and down but when I swiped in the same areas where it suppose to scroll that doesnt happen. I think this happens because either your swiping too fast to notice that you actual lift your finger off the screen or you swiping to areas of the screen where is not suppose to swipe which causes it to stop.

pegger1

Then it would happen on the older devices as well. Watch the video there’s clearly a problem, especially when the scrolling completely stops.

Jerry

ok nevermind I just replicated the “glitch” took my phone a real long time to do it tho my arm started to hurt lol

sylvan feghali

i been having this issue since day one i bought the crap shit iphone 5

mervynraj

wow what a bug?! causin soo much distress isnt?! grow up ppl… who the hell is gon scroll like that?! id never hurt ma iphone like tht!!

Hellusion

If you play Fruit Ninja or Infinity Blade or any other fast paced game it does matter.

ic0dex

And I play both games on my iPhone 5 and I haven’t had that problem.

jose castro

me too

triggerfiend

you have to really get a nice diagonal spaz going on to notice. but this bug is confirmed on my iphone5

http://twitter.com/nck_s Nick Serafini

Confirmed! Recreated on my iPhone 5 (6.0)

http://twitter.com/welcom95 welcom

Same here: iPhone 5 6.0

inc188

i just tried it on i5 at 6.01 and i can replicate the bug…. interesting indeed

iXanczy

Got the same bug iPhone5 iOS 6.0.1

iXanczy

But i would not have noticed it if it wheren’t mentioned here at iDB, so i’ll guess it does not affect my daly use…

Marcos

Oh… it’s true, but my finger hurts now. iPhone 5 iOS 6.0.1

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000218367879 Donato Bearint

I have noticed this on my iPhone 5 and I thought it was just me imagining things.

Daniel

I have been noticing the same issue. It causes problems for me when swiping a left or right in tweetbot.

http://twitter.com/busheman Ryan Bushe

The Real issue it if you just swipe up from the bottom starting from off the screen you do not have to go crazy on the phone. I doesn’t seem to recognize swipes coming from off the screen on the bottom only.

http://twitter.com/aomia syler

Did he say iOS 6.9.1. ?

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=64703221 Mark Thomas

Why on gods earth would you have a reason to swipe like that?? This is just stupid

http://www.facebook.com/dehai Siddharth Desai

Jeff, your iPhone 5 has a considerate amount of yellow tint.

http://twitter.com/S_Lacertosa Stefano

Confirmed repeated on my iPhone 5 iOS 6.0.0 64gb black AT&T

http://twitter.com/unbeliever008 Jae. Just J.

Really? Highly likely a hardware issue would pass unnoticed? I love my iPhone but all I can say is Antenna Gate. That was clearly not a hardware issue.

http://twitter.com/S_Lacertosa Stefano

As a matter in fact I have been wondering why I’m losing this particular game I have been playing ‘Road Trip 2′, this glitch happened when you hold the screen for X-amount of time. I’ve noticed this very often.

seyss

retard

http://www.facebook.com/antman217 Anthony Antunez

I love how nobody notices or gives a sh*t about these bugs until someone points them out and that’s when everybody starts freaking out and complaining lol. I could care less about this bug.

chjode

Well, that settles it. I’m going to throw my iPhone in the trash and buy a Samsung Galaxy S Extreme Ultra Atrix HD 4G II. This bug is showstopping and won’t ever be fixed with a software update to 6.1. This wouldn’t have happened in Steve was still here.

/sarcasm

Outhig

Nope, just an S3.

http://twitter.com/tonybinpan Pan Bin

Mine does too. When I tried to swipe like that in Fruit Ninja, it works fine. So I guess it doesn’t matter to me.

That wouldn’t really explain why my iPhone 5 does the same thing though.

Fevostone

Who the hell does this with any device please stop been picky my ipad iPhone 5 works very very well wen I use it normal and not like a doughnut

George W

Mine after so many days keeps freezing. Touch screen becomes non responsive. Then apps freeze, take a while to respond. Home button doesn’t work. Press app, wait up to 10 secs for a response. Have to turn iPhone off and on.

Leeum

i t does it on the iPad 2 running 5.1.1

http://www.facebook.com/neastwood Nathan Eastwood

I’ve got the same issue on my iPhone 5 on iOS 6.0.1

http://twitter.com/xdracco Juan

bummer. looks like iPrecious 5 isn’t so precious after all.

http://profiles.google.com/faizan.amjad86 Faizan Amjad

i would bet that this is a software glitch related to the thumb/ palm detection

http://twitter.com/doubleaa25 Adham

Did anyone think it was kind of hard to tell whether or not the person was lifting his finger while doing the demo?

http://profile.yahoo.com/XXNYYE2U7R4EKZRLJPMYAATYWM Thai Khoa

I don’t use iDevices in that way lol

Wilmer Chandias

I am also having the same issue, I was scrolling really fast down Tumblr and noticed, at first I thought it was my wifi not loading or something but I realized it only happened when I scrolled down fast. Running iOS 6 on an iPhone 5

http://www.facebook.com/aaron.m.brannan Aaron Brannan

iPhone 5 on 6.0.1 was not able to replicate. And I tried for a good amount of time.

http://www.igeeksblog.com/ Jignesh Padhiyar

Is this a bug? Well, it must be in the fingers then, not the software.

Alejandro Menocal

yep, samething happened on my girlfriend’s iphone 5, and does not happen on my iPhone 4S

Gowtham Narendira Kumar

Exactly! I just wanted to see whether anyone has the same issue and googled.. Am really surprised to find that the issue exists! Shock, actually! Disappointed!!